Small Mercies by Dennis LehaneMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Lehane at his best. Boston noir: nuanced, real characters; trying to get by in a corrupted and imperfect world. Mary Pat is a fascinating character. She's a classic anti-hero. She's not conventionally heroic, her motives are not necessarily pure but she does what has to be done. She struggles to make sense of the situation in which she finds herself, but doesn't foreswore her own responsibility for it. She's also a bad ass.
The setting of the story is also interesting. In some ways it seems incidental to the main plot. But besides giving heighten tension (and disquiet at the overt racism of the time), the issue of busing is another instance of what I think is one of the main leitmotifs of the book. Parents wanting what is best (or what they think is best) for their children: trying to give them what they think they need. Another related motif is that in many cases what the parents are doing is actually harmful for their children. Nearly every character is a parent and struggles with doing what is best for their kids -- even though many fail miserably at it. That's part of the tragic element here: most parents love their kids and want what is best for them; but often we don't know what that is or how to give it to them. And as one character muses: we can't keep them safe. We can teach them, we can love them, we can do our best, but we ultimately can't keep them safe.
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